Swinging Drawbar Usage

The reason that I ask is that the drawbar on my brother's 80 is worn nearly in half from swinging back and forth under a pretty heavy load. Even the drawbar support has quite a bit of wear from this. Judging from the wear on the drawbar, I would guess that this tractor has done some seriously heavy pulling in it's lifetime.

Such lateral flexibility is not an option on integral tools that must be raised for transport and for turning at the end of the row. The price paid is hardware sufficiently sturdy to withstand the sideways torque.

Just curious...did you have your rear wheels moved all the way in? I know on our John Deeres we couldn let the drawbar swing because the tread would be narrow enough to afford a straight draft with a two-bottom plow without pinning the drawbar. Later, with a three-bottom plow, we would move the wheels out a few inches to get that straight draft.

I hope my memory hasn't failed me here, but that's how I remember it from 50 years ago.

Stan

Nothing wrong with a Farmall C...they even used to do tractor square dances with them at the state fairs in the early '50s (maybe it was Super Cs, I don't remember for sure). Unless your wheels were switched from side to side the rear tread would probably have been too wide to keep the drawbar in the middle. Our JDs had a 56" tread with when set all the way in, and a 2-14" plow cut half that much.

Best regards,

Stan

Also, we let the drawbar swing free when disking the first time over, especially when disking from the outside in as mentioned above.

Stan